


Peter Through The Looking Glass

by Lillian



Series: Musical Chairs verse [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dubious Morality, Eventual Monogamy, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Jealousy, Love/Hate, M/M, Pining, Polygamy, Rough Sex, Secret Relationship, Values Dissonance, Virginity Kink, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:48:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian/pseuds/Lillian
Summary: In each universe there's a Peter before and after the Vanishing. It's just not always the same Peter.Before Thanos, Peter has a family, a purpose, a future to look forward to. There's also the thing he has going on with Tony, although the jury's still out on whether that's a positive or a disaster.After Thanos, the only thing he has left is the freedom that comes with having little to lose.





	Peter Through The Looking Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Even before Endgame I had a lot of notes on a series of alternate universes in which various Peter Parkers accidentally switch places after the Snap. Endgame provided the motherload of all justifications, so I'm giving the whole thing a try.
> 
> Just a heads-up: alt!Tony is involved with a lot of women in his verse (including May). I don't want to tag the ships because this fic is unlikely to make the shippers happy and I don't want to clog their tags. All versions of Tony end up in exclusive relationships with versions of Peter, but if you can't stand het or polygamy the first parts of the fic are really going to get on your nerve.

It turns out dying is not like falling asleep at all. It’s general anesthesia instead of dozing on the couch. Your switch turned off instead of put on standby. The long goodbye instead of see you later, alligator, like Tony joked only yesterday, tempting fate.

Peter has a moment to realize just how futile it all was, how thoroughly they lost, to feel a stab of resentment towards Tony for going first, for going at all, and then it's over.

He has no concept of the passage of time like he does in dreams. He blinks, and becomes aware he exists once more, his body solid at the first frantic glance, his feet planted firmly in Titan's rusty soil that clings to his feet like old flaking blood.

Tony was standing right in front of him when it started, so alive to the last with that thin, sardonic smirk that was the last thing of him to disappear. Now Peter's back, but Tony isn't here.

None of Peter's family are here. Just Doctor Strange and the aliens.

"What happened to Tony and-" he demands, but Doctor Strange cuts him off.

"They're back on Earth. Five years have passed. There's no time to waste, they're fighting Thanos and they need us."

This is too much to assimilate, so Peter doesn't even try to. When Doctor Strange opens another portal, he steps through with no hesitation. He'll just roll with the punches for now until Thanos is dealt with and save the questions for the aftermath.

On the other side of the portal reigns utter chaos. It doesn't look like Earth but like they stepped onto another wrecked alien planet. The noise is like a wall, a crawling hedgerow of strands of sound, and Peter is incredibly grateful when the suit automatically muffles the worst of it. So many people and ships, some of them on their side and some not. Peter just puts down everything that attacks him while making his way through the battlefield, looking for Tony, for other familiar faces. His heart hammers a frantic rhythm against his chest, while Peter tries not to worry about what ifs.

When he glimpses Wanda in the distance raining red fire it's like a small gulp of air. He hears the clanking of Rhodey’s heavier suit and sees the man himself soon after before he speeds away. It's okay, Peter’s not the only one who came back, it's just that the others popped up on Earth for some reason. He can't see Natasha anywhere, but she's not meant to be flashy in battle, that's the whole point of the stealth suit. And he's not that worried about the bots, even if all their bodies were destroyed it doesn't matter, Tony made frequent back-ups so they'd lose a couple of days at most.

But still, there's no Tony and that sets Peter's blood on fire and spurs him on. There are too many people around using repulsor tech or something like it to use that as a guide. All out of other ideas, Peter heads for the big dude, the highest potential vantage point. It turns out he won't need it though, because there Tony is, on the other side of the giant's legs, knocked off his feet.

Peter leaps towards Tony, helps him up and doesn't let go of his arm. His heart is beating no less slowly, but with exhilaration now.

“Oh my God, Tony, you won’t believe what happened. I woke up on Titan _alone_ , what’s up with that? And Doctor Strange said it’s been five years and we had to hurry it back here to help, and then he made one of his portal thingies, can we work on duplicating those later, they’re crazy useful, and-” he knows he’s babbling, beating around the bush, it’s just that now that he’s found Tony he’s just so terrified Tony will take it back. That he’ll say he didn’t mean his promise on the ship, that he just said it to appease Peter. And Peter isn’t sure he can take that right now, he’d much rather deceive himself for a little while longer.

Except reneging doesn’t seem to be on Tony’s mind. He yanks Peter into a hug, wraps his arms around him and just holds him while the fight rages on around them. Peter’s first thought is that they must be dead after all, because this is exactly what he needs and wants right now, and Tony never gives him that. Tony always holds something back and even in their happiest moments there’s a spoonful of bile mixed in with the honey to remind Peter how much he fucked up when he fell in love with this man.

Maybe it’s okay to let himself believe that things will be different now. For all his faults Tony never made him promises he didn’t intend to keep. Maybe it’s not so crazy to take a leap of faith.

He pushes Tony back reluctantly, only just far enough to see his face. Tony’s smiling at him a little.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, kid, it’ll ruin my reputation,” he tells Peter and _winks_ , leaving Peter helplessly hopeful. Tony's already bouncing off dying, and it's so him and so comforting Peter gets swept along.

He only hopes Tony doesn’t start calling him kid too from now on. Pup and whelp were bad enough.

“Because it’s such a spotless reputation,” Peter quips back, then, because he can, he leans in and up and kisses Tony on the lips. It’s short and shallow but deliciously dirty, especially out in the open like this even though no one is likely to notice right now. Peter swipes his tongue against Tony’s lower lip, briefly sucks in the upper into his mouth before letting Tony feel a hint of teeth just like Tony likes doing to him.

Tony makes a strange noise, not quite a moan, and takes a single pull on Peter’s lips and tongue, like a smoker trying to give up pulls on a rich, bitter cigarette.

When Peter draws back Tony looks gratifyingly dazed. Peter drinks in the sight of him, dark, intense eyes, red lips, and files it for later before extricating his wrist gently out of Tony’s vice hold - he didn’t even feel Tony grabbing him - and taking off. He can’t watch Tony’s six right now, he’s more likely to get distracted around him and get them both in trouble.

“Later, alligator,” he shouts at Tony, who still hasn’t moved, and jumps back into the fray.

It’s almost fun fighting like this, with so many allies and such a high hope for victory. Now that he knows Tony’s okay Peter feels a savage joy cutting through the army of the guy who killed them, who taunted Tony and imagined himself beyond any reckoning. He activates the suit’s instant kill mode now and again, just laying waste to everything around him with the beautiful precision characteristic of all of Tony’s creations.

Rolling with the punches is really the only viable strategy because everything around him is completely bananas. At one point the King of Wakanda hands him a freaking infinity gauntlet, one that looks like Tony's work, and then Nomad gives Peter a lift with Thor’s hammer, and Peter’s briefly sure that Thor died because he can’t imagine the Asgardian giving up his hammer otherwise, but then sees Thor fighting on top of a junk heap with an axe. He looks just fine, even if he’s lost a lot of weight. Then someone in a Stark armor that looks a bit like the one Tony was doing for May gives Peter an assist and by the sound of it it’s Ms. Potts inside. Where the hell did Ms. Potts get an armor? But he has little time to wonder about it before he lands on the back of a flying horse, and how cool is that, a flying freaking horse! Sometimes Peter loves his life.

That’s where the cakewalk ends though, he has to swerve and dodge and weather hits and pray none of the energy beams hit him because he doubts even Tony’s suit will be enough to deflect them. He loses his mask somewhere and has to curl around the gauntlet, because if they lose that they’re fucked, and if something destroys an infinity stone best case scenario the whole battlefield goes up in smoke. Worst, a quarter of the planet crumbles like a stale cookie.

Happily, something that looks like a comet but is probably a super powerful alien destroys Thanos’ ship just in time. The comet lands in front of Peter, and he uncurls just enough and see that if it’s an alien, it’s one that looks shockingly human.

Peter’s a bit rattled then, so he defaults to his basic response aka out-of-place politeness courtesy of some early lessons by Ben and May.

“Hi. I’m, eh, Peter Stark,” he says.

“Hi, Peter Stark. Got anything for me?”

Which is when the pre-battle planning session they held in Tony's lab what feels like a million years ago surfaces in Peter’s mind. They had cocoa and Bundt cake courtesy of Jarvis, and half the family were still in their pajamas. Tony was in his track suit and so was May, the warning having arrived right before their morning run.

“None of us are strong enough to play marbles with the full set of Infinity Stones. For the last time, no, not even you, Wanda. Our goal is to get the gauntlet out of Thanos' reach. Anyone tries any heroics and survives, they’ll wish they didn’t,” Tony had ordered. "We'll look for someone trustworthy enough to actually wield the things afterwards."

If comet lady isn’t trustworthy, they’re all fucked anyway because Peter’s pretty sure he couldn’t keep her from taking the gauntlet from him by force. So he gets up on his feet, trying to keep steady, and hands over his cargo.

“Please try to think only about killing his army or whatever while you’re using it,” he says, just in case she doesn’t know. “The stones should interpret any thought as an order, so if you think about ice-cream in the wrong moment things might get really messy. Um, good luck.”

Comet lady looks at him with mild surprise. She picks up the gauntlet off Peter’s arms and runs her hands over it, before her face sets back into the previous determined expression. She plunges her arm in decisively and the glove molds to it. Peter turns away and takes cover, just in case.

He should probably cover his eyes too but he can’t help looking. It takes mere moments. He hears comet lady’s triumphant roar, then the abortive screams of Thanos’ army as it blows away in the wind. A hot gust of air and ash hits him in the face.

Peter whips around and sees that the Stark-tech gauntlet is cracked and blackened, but that the arm of the woman wearing it's as solid as diamond and glowing with the same brilliant glow as before. Peter can’t believe that they just won, for good this time. Is it for good? He has this niggling feeling that it was too easy, that the other shoe’s bound to drop any moment now.

But then it wasn’t easy, was it? They died for this.

The other superheroes start landing around Comet lady and Peter, looking like the same stunned relief that’s rising in Peter is also gaining hold in them all. Wanda hits the ground close-by and Peter half staggers, half runs to her side and gives her a one-armed hug. She looks so surprised at it she must not have spotted Peter during the fight.

“We did it, Wanda!” he yells. Wanda frowns a little, and then slowly gives him one of her melancholy little smiles. “Hey, have you seen Nat anywhere?”

“No,” Wanda says. She’s still eyeing Peter with some confusion, almost like she’s looking at a stranger. Must be the shell shock. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened to her.”

But that doesn’t mean anything, Natasha’s probably somewhere around here. He’s just about to suggest they look for her and Jarvis and _Tony_ together, when his magpie glance gets attracted by a flash of tarnished gold directly ahead.

It’s Tony, in one piece and with a brilliant white grin on his soot-smudged face, the most beautiful sight in Peter’s life. He beams back so hard his lips start hurting, but Tony doesn’t seem to be looking at him, just grinning to himself. He bends a little and rests his hands on his thighs like he’s winded, and Peter suddenly notices he looks much older. The web of wrinkles around the grin is deeper and his hair is salt-and-pepper and not the jet black with only threads of silver that Peter remembers, that he ran his fingers through in a dark nook on the Maw’s ship while Tony pressed his face into Peter’s neck and fucked him almost convulsively.

Something catches Tony’s attention. It’s the new armor, and it really is Ms. Potts inside, her face bare now, the helmet receded. She alights next to Tony, and immediately hugs him, and that’s already enough to make Peter feel on edge. Then she kisses him, very quickly but on the lips, and Peter himself doesn’t feel when he starts jogging towards them. No way has he gone through all he has with Tony to let the one woman in his life Tony wasn't sleeping with make a move on him now.

Tony notices him first and kind of freezes, which is good because he didn’t try to push Ms. Potts away. This at least means he realizes he fucked up and won’t try to play it as no big deal.

Ms. Potts has already pulled back some, and she steps to the side when she sees Peter approach, like she wants to give him access to Tony, but at the same time she keeps her arm loosely around him. This makes Peter bristle even more. Who is she to act as if Tony’s hers, as if Peter’s a distant friend she’s magnanimously allowing to have a turn before she occupies Tony’s whole attention once more? She’s not even part of the family, even if Tony did make her an armor in secret.

Tony’s eyes widen and darken when he finally notices Peter. Perhaps he can tell Peter’s determined to mark his territory, that Tony won’t be able to keep Peter his dirty little secret any ore whether he likes it or not. Either way he has no chance to talk his way out of this one, not even to glare a warning.

Peter steps lightly on the toes of Tony’s armor, just like he did on Tony’s dress shoes so long ago when Tony was teaching him to dance, and winds his arms around Tony’s neck. Tony sucks in a sharp breath and so his mouth is open when Peter kisses him. Peter slips him some tongue right away, licking teasingly against Tony’s own with his head angled sharply to the side, kissing more for show than for pleasure.

The little clearing they’re standing in is bursting at the seams with people by now, and Tony’s at a high point on a slope of rubble. Too many will see, and even a bullshitter as shameless as Tony won’t be able to deny this later.

Peter's so focused on making a statement, that it takes him a couple of seconds to notice Tony isn’t kissing back. Peter nudges Tony’s nose with his own, wordlessly begging for a response. Tony can’t be this mad, can he? What did he expect Peter to do?

But Tony must be very mad indeed because Peter feels the jolt as he extricates himself from Ms. Potts, and a second later Tony’s suited hands grip him hard under the armpits and wrench him away.

Peter dangles in Tony’s hold, a full arm’s length away like a recalcitrant kitten. Resentment, indignation and fear swirl in his mind. It’s not fair for Tony to complain, Peter had the right to do this, Tony _promised_ , but all of that means nothing because it’s Tony who makes the rules and always has.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tony splutters out, and Peter’s eyes fly to his face. Tony doesn’t look mad, he looks… distraught. But that couldn’t be right, why should he be so upset over a kiss, even one that forces his hand?

Peter's vaguely aware of other people drawing close, the telltale whir of Rhodey’s armor again, and Wanda must have followed Peter because he can feel her at his back by pure spidery intuition. Peter can’t afford to back off now.

“What does it look like? You promised that if we lived through this we’d stop hiding, that you’d tell everyone,” the words are full of bravado but Peter’s voice comes off high and anxious, like a stupid little kid begging to be reassured. “Were you lying?”

“Tony, what is the meaning of this?” Ms. Potts asks glacially. She doesn’t sound like a valued employee who just found out her boss has been fucking his ward.

Tony drops Peter like a hot potato.

Peter throws him a betrayed look, staggering a little until he gains his footing on a pile of debris, and Tony looks away from him and towards Ms. Potts so quickly he must get whiplash.

“I _swear_ , I never put a finger on him. I swear I told you everything, just, Pep, please look at me.”

“Jesus, Tony,” Rhodey’s voice is full of disgust.

“Thanks so much for the vote of confidence, buddy. I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with him, we should get him to a-”

None of this makes sense, it all feels increasingly off and Peter has no idea where to begin sorting it. The worst part is he suspects he’ll like the explanation even less than this vague wrongness.

A hand settles down carefully on his shoulder and Peter looks up from Tony’s reactor, which he had been unconsciously staring at, and into the face of the woman who wielded the Infinity stones not ten minutes ago.

“Is there a problem, Peter Stark?” she asks with only a hint of concern and humor, remote like such a godly being should be, and even before the sudden silence and the cacophony of questions following it, Peter knows the answer to that question with a sudden, horrible clarity.

The problem is that he took a wrong turn somewhere, swerved off the right path and got lost so thoroughly, that this place, this best possible, one-in-fourteen-million future, is a nightmare to him.


End file.
